Sarah Palin, reading her telepromptor, in the view of Gina Barreca, will spin out of control, "sliding all the way to the bank." That would seem to be preferable to our new presidential messiah, also reading his telepromptor, sliding out of control, all the way to bankruptcy- unfortunately, bankruptcy for the entire country.

What's funny is watching all the littoral literati and artisti go into parozysms of mixed terror, apprehension, contempt, and scorn at the thought of former Governor Palin.

Jffoster--I can tell you have a lot to say, and I hope you'll help us to understand it. You make specific reference to those "literati and artisti" (presumably, you mean "writers and artists"--incidentally, in English, "artist" is pluralized with an "s") who, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, are "of, relating to, or situated or growing on or near a shore especially of the sea." Is this a cunning reference to how the mass media can dominate or affect Americans' concepts of liminal spaces? Are you using shorelines as a metaphor for personal boundaries, or perhaps for the ever-shifting boundary between a public figure, for instance Ms. Palin, and the public who respond to her? Or do you feel particularly that, literally, artists and writers who live on the seaside are especially relevant to this debate?

Further, I was unable to locate "parozysm" in the Oxford English Dictionary; could you please define?

Davi and Jff: Thanks for commenting, because I understand why your comments are always critical and earnest with a bloodhound quality to them. Your political colors are what color all your responses to all these various posts. I don't read your comments carefully so I didn't have this knowledge earlier. No wonder you are always on the attack and hate everything everybody writes in Brainstorm.

3. In answer to your first paragraph, Yes.

As to your second paragraphy, you will note that x and z on a QWERTY heyboard are next to each other and hit with the same finger. Were you really unable to guess that was a mistype for 'paroxysm' or are you being deliberately obtuse?

I love it when the name Sarah Palin shows up on this forum. Though she does not appear to be of presidential caliber (not to suggest current and recent presidents are), I am amused that Katy Couric is considered brilliant because she...well, reads a teleprompter well. As does President Obama, by the way.
Personalities and vitriol are much more enteraining to write, if not to read, than thoughtful discussion.

I agree at a sideways angle with Prof. Foster. The liberal chattering classes, a k a the brie-and-chablis set (of which I am a member, except that brie is too fatty and I don't like the taste of chablis), really ought to give the Chicken Little thing a rest with Sarah Palin.

Relax. She's over with.

While she'll have a considerable following among the embattled and going-nowhere Tea Party crowd, and while she'll pull in viewers for Fox for a while (probably until the novelty wears off), she's null and void as a candidate for any consequential office. (The ex-politicians on Fox don't return to politics, do they?) She's a lot stupider than Limbaugh and Dobbs, isn't quick on her feet (unless one considers "You betcha" to be withering repartee), has a really irritating voice, and a babe factor that'll soon be no better than Nancy Pelosi's. Ratings at the Fox gig will probably peak with the elections this year, and then tail off precipitously. In short, you can put lipstick (and short skirts) on a William Miller (I'll let the Republican faithful retrieve that one from the data bank), but you've still got just another political failure (beaten in the national election, and bailed as Governor on the state she promised to serve) on your hands.

The wonder, given Palin's hightailing out of the Governor's office almost a year and a half before her term was over, is that Fox signed her to a "multi-year" contract. (Wish I was in Vegas and could get a couple of hundred down on her not finishing it.) But maybe--with Bristol and Levi and Todd around--they figure Sarah for a future "Jon & Kate Plus Eight" kind of slot.

PS: "Brainstorm" is a blog, and its posters make typos and copyreading errors. The commenters are even more quick, off-the-cuff and informal. That's part of the game. And Prof. Foster, as one can tell from his comments elsewhere, doesn't type very well. But he's as smart as any of us, knows his academic beans, and makes his (regrettably) rightwing political points coherently. So this Miss Grundy, Hall Monitor of Typos, tsk-tsking stuff is petty.

#7: your Vegas comment was actually funny. thanks for making me laugh even though I'd bet there are really people making book on Palin, just as they are on on Conan O'Brien.

@7,

Tony Snow became Press Secretary, for what it's worth.

Re #9:

I should've specified "politics" as running for elective office.

Off the top: aren't Press Secretaries coming from, and returning to, the media not exactly the rarest of birds?

Sarah Palin would probably make a good Press Secretary for a (heavens forefend!) rightwing President: Camera-friendly, glamorous to the Joe the Plumber set, and with an invaluable (pseudo?) folksy ability to answer, with no substance at all but with a beaming smile, any question put to her. "You know, that's just what the President is going to do. He's going to visit several countries, such as Africa and Madrid and tell folks there just how much our invasion of Malaysia is going to help their free markets. You betcha."